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Intro |
Points Of View |
North |
South |
Highlands |
Midlands |
East |
West |
Conclusion
The Home Front (The South)
Visualising Heaven |
In Focus: Eric Ravilious
In Focus: Eric Ravilious
The French never did invade England but the Germans nearly
did. Official War Artists were commissioned by the Government to
record what happened in World War II. Eric Ravilious was one of
these artists.
When Eastbourne - the town where he was brought up - was
bombed during the war, Ravilious said that it looked "like the ruins
of Pompeii here and there and almost no-one left in the town". His
words suggest an emotional response, but in the work that he produced
as an Official War Artist from January 1940 he retained the detachment
necessary to pick out patterns in nature and aeroplanes. His aim
was not - as John Piper thought a war artist's should be - to convey
the "death and destruction, and the agony that stays about the rubbish
pile and the grave".
Both of these images are in watercolour, Ravilious's favourite
medium: it suited the absolute precision with which he defined his
forms. By contrast, he felt that painting in oil was like "using
toothpaste".
Tiger Moth biplanes were used to train pilots. When Ravilious
flew in them he complained that "air pictures don't have enough
horizontals and verticals: they are all clouds and patterned fields
and bits and pieces of planes". He was fascinated by the interlocking
shapes of machinery of all kinds, but not by mechanics.
Ravilious was the first of only three Official War Artists
to die during the war. He was stationed in Iceland at the time and
his plane failed to return while searching for another one that
had disappeared the day before.
- The subject matter of Shelling by Night is horrific,
but does it match the neat precision of the style? Does the style
suit the subject or, as with Our English Coasts, is the
artist heightening the clarity of his technique to reveal the
extent of the horror inflicted upon the site?
- A dramatic approach does not necessarily enhance tragedy. Sometimes
a very sober presentation may make the horror worse. There are
some obviously hellish paintings in the exhibition but are they
as scary as factual, beautifully drawn images such as these?
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View in Tate Collection